Thank God

Content warning: sexual abuse

Our religion teacher, the priest,
treated us guys one Friday night
to pro-wrestling downtown. 
Tim and I cheered the phony Soviets, 
Smirnoff and Kolov, just to razz
for laughs the raucous Florida crowd.
That was the seventies for you.

After the show we went to the rectory
for snacks, poker, cigars and liquor. 
Their cabinet was stocked with booze—
spirits for hard days, long nights.
I remember a fifth of Wild Turkey; 
my first glass was on ice. We dealt,
talked, sipped, smoked and laughed
until we blew our bluffs and slurred
our bets, until the liquor had us licked.

Waking up, I had no memory
of how I wound up in the Lazy Boy
covered with a blanket, or how Ben
ended up like a folded hand, face down
on the couch, or how and when
the cards and glasses got put away.

The morning after that round of oblivion
turned out to be nothing worse
than waking up with a thumb of pain
behind my left eye and a numbed tongue
that couldn’t taste the buttered toast
he offered the five of us. “You guys
were completely gone,” he laughed. Amen.